Day 14: Piro Research Station
Howler monkeys bookend our days here on Osa Conservation’s land. Each day starts the same. I am woken up at 4:30 by the howling. I make coffee as the bird songs rise up to clash with the howlers. I eat oatmeal watching endangered spider monkeys swing from branch to branch above our tin roof with tiny babies clutched to their backs. I shake out my sneakers to remove the possibility of snakes or scorpions. I run west on a gray dirt road through secondary lowland tropical forest. I wish I could describe the dust storm kicking up behind me as I speed through miles of terrain, but I am slowed by every bird, butterfly, and sometimes anteater. I return drenched in sweat. Not so little Gordon sized puddles appear underneath me every time I stop moving. So, straight in the river fed, outdoor shower I go. Second breakfast is normally leftover dinner, an egg cooked on a camp stove, and shared with my 6 compatriots.
The campsite is almost luxurious. With us in the clearing is a group of sea turtle researchers studying the turtles on the nearby beach and staff that work up at the headquarters of Osa Conservation. There are flush toilets, a shower, and a structure for sleeping and a structure for cooking. We are surrounded by secondary rainforest. This is rainforest that was cleared for agriculture or logging and has since regenerated. This is a relatively young forest but the trees are bigger than most I see on the east coast. From our cooking platform we can see/hear at least 60 species of bird, 2 species of monkey, peccary, coati, and butterflies
The rest of every day is unpredictable. We are here helping collect data for a reforestation study using dung beetles as indicators of forest health and function. The project is looking at whether planting early successional pioneer species speeds up the regeneration of forest. It uses dung beetle composition and species as one measure of where the forest is in the regeneration process. Practically, that means we collect dung beetles from the different plots. That means we have to attract dung beetles. And that means we have to poop in a bucket, roll it into little balls with our hands, and suspend them over a cup of soapy water in the different plots. Its glamorous I know, but something has to balance out the phrase “river fed, outdoor shower.”
The handling of poop isn’t the most fun part of the job but the data that will come because of it is worth it, as are the walks to the plots. In the morning we race the heat of the day to set out plots in the exposed grassland. But in the afternoon, we can go into the shelter of untouched primary rainforest. There the trees are large. Very large. Most of the canopy trees are at least 6 feet in diameter and have roots that are taller than me. The biggest tree that the trail passes is a 12 foot in diameter ajo tree dedicated to the founder of the national parks in Costa Rica. There is something magical being in the presence of something that massive and old. Something primal spiritual, and biological all at once. These things are hundreds of years old, many older that America. We get to walk up and down those trails, past those gigante trees, and thrash into the bush carrying little bags of poop for science.
